Mercedes have been the team to beat in Formula 1 since the start of the V6 hybrid era. With eight Constructors’ Championship victories, Mercedes are in the midst of record-breaking dominance.
| Drivers’ Championships | 9 |
| Constructors’ Championships | 8 |
| First F1 Appearance | 1954 French Grand Prix |
| Wins | 128 |
| Poles | 139 |
Mercedes’ history in motorsport dates back to the 1930s, when the team, largely funded by the Nazi regime, were nicknamed ‘the Silver Arrows’. In 1954, the Mercedes team entered the Formula 1 Championship for the first time, with Juan Manuel Fangio joining the team mid-season and winning four races along with the Drivers’ Championship. Fangio was joined by Stirling Moss for the 1955 season, with Fangio once again taking the spoils. The racing season was marred in 1955 by the Le Mans disaster, which killed Mercedes sportscar driver Pierre Levegh and 80 spectators. Mercedes withdrew from motorsport as a result, and would not return to Formula One as a works team for over fifty years. Mercedes did, however, supply engines to teams from 1994, powering McLaren during a successful twenty year partnership, which saw the team win three Drivers’ Titles and the 1998 Constructors’ Championship.
The Brackley based team itself has seen many guises over the years, from its Tyrell beginnings in 1970, to BAR in 1999 and to Honda in 2006. When Honda chose to quit the sport at the end of 2008, Ross Brawn bought the team and named it Brawn GP. Powered by Mercedes engines, the team rocketed to championship victory in its first and only year. Mercedes bought a minority share in the team at the end of 2009, and the Brawn team became a Mercedes works team, making headlines by bringing Michael Schumacher out of retirement as their star driver.
Mercedes were unable to recreate Brawn GP’s success on their return to the sport, finishing fourth in the 2010 championship. In 2011, they were once again fourth, with Schumacher’s fourth place in Canada a season highlight. In 2012, the team returned to the top of the podium for the first time since 1955 as Nico Rosberg took pole and the win at the Chinese Grand Prix. That was to be the team’s best result of the year, though Schumacher scored his final F1 podium at the European round, and would have taken pole at Monaco if not for a five-place grid penalty from the previous race. Lewis Hamilton joined the team for the 2013 season. Rosberg took two wins over the course of the year, while Hamilton took his first Mercedes win in Hungary. They finished runners-up overall to Red Bull, who were untouchable in the second half of the season.
Come 2014, it was Mercedes who were the untouchable team, dominating the season with eighteen poles and sixteen wins, thanks to their brilliant V6 hybrid engine. The battle for the Drivers’ Championship was firmly between Hamilton and Rosberg, with Hamilton finally coming out on top at the last round of the season. The same number of wins and poles followed in 2015, and it was Hamilton who had an easier ride to championship victory.
In 2016, the tension between the driver pairing reached fever pitch, as a spate of reliability issues put Hamilton on the back foot. Rosberg won the first four races of the season, before the duo took each other out at the Spanish Grand Prix. The two collided again on the last lap in Austria, and Hamilton took the lead in the championship ahead of the summer break. The first three races of the second half of the season, though, were dominated Rosberg, and an engine blow-out in Malaysia put Hamilton once again on the back foot. Rosberg wrapped up the title in Abu Dhabi, despite Hamilton’s best attempts to stop him. Rosberg then announced his retirement from the sport just a week after clinching the title.
It was a fourth straight Constructors’ Championship win for Mercedes in 2017, but they were challenged more regularly than they had been over their previous three dominant seasons, scoring almost 100 less points in total over the year. The team dynamic changed in 2017 as Nico Rosberg left and Valtteri Bottas arrived, seemingly making for a more harmonious working environment for their champion driver, Lewis Hamilton. Mercedes’ reliability in 2017 was almost bulletproof, with both cars finishing in the points at every race bar the Spanish Grand Prix where Bottas’ engine expired. Their winning ways continued in 2018, though the team came under increased pressure from Ferrari, who looked to have a car at least equal to the reigning champions. Hamilton took eleven victories on his way to a fifth drivers’ title, while Bottas failed to win a race, becoming the first Mercedes to fail to take victory in a season since Michael Schumacher in 2012. A rare double car failure at the Austrian Grand Prix was the low-point of the season.
MERCEDES IN 2019
Mercedes were one of only two teams to stick with their 2018 driver line-up for the 2019 season, retaining the services of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas for a third consecutive year. 2019 was going to be Ferrari’s year and the year that Mercedes’ domination of Formula 1 finally came to an end, right? Not quite: Mercedes silenced the pre-season chatter with five consecutive 1-2 finishes in the first five races. They went on to record four more 1-2 results over the course of the season. There were only seven races which didn’t feature two Mercedes drivers in the top three, while Germany, Singapore and Brazil were the only races to not feature a Mercedes driver on the podium.
Germany, in which Mercedes celebrated 125 years of motorsport by donning fancy dress and running a special livery, was their lowest point of the season – if not the hybrid era – as Bottas crashed out, and Hamilton was left waiting over a minute in an uncoordinated pit stop, ultimately finishing only ninth. While they couldn’t challenge Ferrari for pole over the opening races of the second half of the season, arguably their only other off day in 2019 came in Singapore, when Hamilton and Bottas had the pace to finish only fourth and fifth. Their rare off days could not prevent them from becoming the first team to be guaranteed six consecutive Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championship at the Japanese Grand Prix. Read more: Mercedes’ 2019 F1 Season In Stats.
MERCEDES IN 2020
In 2020, Mercedes celebrated an unprecedented seventh consecutive Constructors’ Championship victory, having also won the Drivers’ Championship in every season since 2014. But their unparalleled success has not stopped the team from striving to be better, or finding new ways to dominate. Their innovative Dual Axis Steering system unveiled during winter testing was one of major engineering talking points of 2020 (though the system is banned from 2021 onwards).
The team notched up another thirteen wins and fifteen poles during the 2020 season, recording five 1-2 finishes. They secured their seventh successive title win at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, before Lewis Hamilton sealed the title at the Turkish Grand Prix. The team ultimately scored almost double the points of closest rivals Red Bull.
While the Sakhir Grand Prix – and Mercedes’ pit stop blunders – proved that even the best in the business can have off days, it also proved that George Russell, who replaced coronavirus-stricken Hamilton, would be a capable pair of hands to replace either current driver in the future. Read more: Mercedes’ 2020 F1 Season In Stats.
MERCEDES IN 2021
With minimal rule changes, it was expected that Mercedes would dominate again in 2021. However, Red Bull proved to be more of a threat than first anticipated. For the first time in the V6 hybrid era, a Mercedes driver did not win the championship – though Lewis Hamilton was in contention right until the final lap of the final race. The team still managed to continue their record winning streak in the Constructors’ Championship.
MERCEDES IN 2022
Valtteri Bottas has departed the Mercedes team ahead of the 2022 season, with George Russell lining up alongside Lewis Hamilton in all-British driver pairing. Testing proved to be difficult for Mercedes in 2022, with their drivers struggling with handling and porpoising issues. As F1 new era begins, can Mercedes maintain their place at the head of the pack?
MERCEDES’ RECENT F1 HISTORY
| Year | Championship Position | Wins | Poles | Drivers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 4th (214 points) | 0 | 0 | Michael Schumacher, Nico Rosberg |
| 2011 | 4th (165 points) | 0 | 0 | Michael Schumacher, Nico Rosberg |
| 2012 | 5th (142 points) | 1 | 0 | Michael Schumacher, Nico Rosberg |
| 2013 | 2nd (360 points) | 3 | 8 | Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg |
| 2014 | 1st (701 points) | 16 | 18 | Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg |
| 2015 | 1st (703 points) | 16 | 18 | Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg |
| 2016 | 1st (765 points) | 19 | 20 | Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg |
| 2017 | 1st (668 points) | 12 | 15 | Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas |
| 2018 | 1st (655 points) | 11 | 13 | Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas |
| 2019 | 1st (739 points) | 15 | 10 | Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas |
| 2020 | 1st (573 points) | 13 | 15 | Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas, George Russell |